How to Unpublish or Delete a WordPress Site (7 Easy Methods)

Want to unpublish your WordPress website? Maybe you are considering a full site revamp, or just need to take your site offline for some time.

Whatever the case, you can easily take your site down, manage individual pages, and figure out any potential SEO considerations by following the approaches described in this blog.

This blog discusses multiple methods to unpublish your WordPress pages and posts, why you might want to unpublish your site, and how to do it in seconds on the Cloudways Platform.

We’ve also covered the methods to temporarily take your site down, as well as the SEO considerations. So let’s dive in!

Why Would You Unpublish a WordPress Site?

When we talk about unpublishing a WordPress Website, you might want to do it for different reasons, including:

• Update or Redesign: Unpublishing your WordPress website helps avoid confusion for visitors if you want to make any change to it.
• Rebranding your Business: Users looking to start fresh with their business would want to take the site down for some time to create a new brand identity.
• Temporary Maintenance: You can use this mode to make any updates or changes on your site, informing visitors of the same.
• Privacy: If you have sensitive content that needs to be hidden from public view, unpublishing your website or specific content page will help.

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How to Unpublish a WordPress site on Cloudways (Quick Method)

If your WordPress Website is hosted on the Cloudways Platform, then you can unpublish or delete it in seconds. Not a Cloudways user? Jump straight to this part.

Here’s how:

• Access your Cloudways Platform and select your application.
• Once you are on your selected application’s console, you can click the  “Delete Application” option under the “Quick Actions” tab to delete your app.

• If you want to delete or unpublish your WordPress Website using the Cloudways API, you can follow the Cloudways API Documentation or directly unpublish the website from the Cloudways API Playground.

How to Temporarily Disable a WordPress Site on Cloudways

Don’t want to delete your WordPress website hosted on Cloudways but want to temporarily disable it? Follow the steps below:

• Go to your Cloudways Platform and log in with your credentials.
• Select your desired WordPress application.
• Click Application Settings, and you’ll find the General tab.

• Scroll down to find the Application Access tab.
• Click the toggle button to temporarily disable your app.
• Doing so will show a “Service Unavailable” status to all your website’s visitors, while your site would still be accessible to you.

How to Unpublish WordPress Pages and Posts (7 Easy Methods)

For WordPress sites, there are multiple ways of unpublishing individual pages and posts. Whether you want to make modifications, restrict any page, or just take the entire site offline for a while, you can do it by following the methods listed below:

Method 1: Switch Pages and Posts to Draft

The easiest way to unpublish a page or post is by changing its status to “Draft.” In doing so, you can hide the page or content yet maintain its accessibility for further updates. Here’s how you do it:

• Access your WordPress dashboard by logging in with your credentials.
• Depending on what you would like to unpublish, select the desired  Page or Post, the steps for both are the same.

• Hover your cursor over the page or post’s title and select Edit.
• On the right side of the editor, you should see the Publish section.
• Select Edit by clicking on the “Published” status.

• Click Update after selecting “Draft” from the drop-down option. And that’s it.

After this action, the page or post will no longer be visible to the general public, but you can simply republish it whenever you’re ready by following the same steps.

Method 2: Use Bulk Actions for Multiple Pages or Posts

If you want to unpublish multiple pages or posts in one go, you can use the bulk actions functionality:

• Go to your dashboard and click on Pages or Posts.
• For each page or post you wish to unpublish, check the boxes next to it.

• Choose Edit from the drop-down menu under Bulk Actions, then click Apply.
• Select Draft from the Status dropdown and click “Update“.

You can easily manage several pages or posts in one go with this time-saving method.

Method 3: Switch Pages or Posts to Private Mode

You can also change a page or post’s visibility to “Private,” making it visible only to individuals who have specific rights, such as administrators, editors, authors, etc:

• Open the Pages or Posts section on your WordPress dashboard.
• Click  Edit on the post or page that you want to make private.
• Locate the Publish box’s visibility options in the editor.

• Select Private after clicking Edit next to Visibility and update the setting.

This method is especially helpful when you want limited people to have access to your post or page without it being accessible to everyone else.

Method 4: Use the “Password-Protect” Option

Using the password-protect function is another way to restrict who can access your pages or posts. This is how it works:

• Select the page or post in your WordPress dashboard that you want to keep private. Click the Edit button.

• Choose Password Protected from the Visibility settings.
• Create a password that users need to enter in order to access your post/page.

While this does not exactly remove your content, it keeps it hidden from users who do not have the password.

Method 5: Schedule a Future Publication Date

If you’d like to take a post or page offline temporarily, you can simply adjust its publication date:

• Edit the post or page you want to unpublish.

• Look at the right-hand side of the screen for the Publish settings.
• Change the publication date to a future date and time.

Doing so will hide your content until it goes live on the date and time you’ve set.

Method 6: Move the Page/Post to Trash

Another really simple method to unpublish or remove a page/post is to delete it by moving it to the trash:

• Go to the Posts or Pages section in your WordPress dashboard.
• Locate the page/post you want to unpublish.
• Click Trash right under your chosen page/post.

• And the post/page will be moved to Trash. But don’t worry, you can always restore it later if you change your mind.

Method 7: Use a Plugin

Using a plugin can be an ideal option for those who wish to have more control over their content’s display. You can easily control your posts with the use of plugins like Unpublish or Disable Posts:

• Choose a deactivation plugin that works for you, then install and activate it.
• Follow the plugin’s instructions to unpublish a single post or even a large number of items at once.

• Additional capabilities or plugin features that allow you to control when and how your content is unpublished are frequently included in these plugins to make the process easier to use.

How to Unpublish a WordPress Site (Temporarily)

When you need to make changes, perform maintenance, or rebuild your WordPress website without erasing all of the content, temporarily unpublishing it can be the best option. Using a maintenance mode plugin is one of the easiest and most efficient methods for achieving this.

Using this method, you may let visitors know that you’re working on changes by displaying a personalized message while your website is unavailable.

How to Unpublish Entire Website

To temporarily remove your complete website, execute the following actions:

• Go to your WordPress dashboard and select Settings.
• Next, select the Reading option.
• Check mark the box next to the search engine visibility option to prevent search engines from crawling this website.

When your site is unavailable, this setting will stop search engines from displaying it in the search results.

How to Put Up Maintenance Mode

In order to successfully put your website on maintenance mode, you can follow the steps shared:

• Install and enable a maintenance mode plugin, such as SeedProd or WordPress Maintenance Mode.
• Change or modify the maintenance mode text or appearance to suit your preferences.
• After saving the modifications you made, publish the customized maintenance page.

Once enabled, users will view the maintenance page, allowing you to continue working on your website uninterrupted.

SEO Considerations When Unpublishing Your WordPress Site

Unpublishing your WordPress site can significantly impact your SEO. But you can consider the following best practices to minimize potential issues.

• If you’re permanently removing pages, implement appropriate redirects to ensure users don’t encounter broken links. Doing so will help maintain a positive user experience and preserves your site’s authority.
• Use Google Search Console to notify search engines of any changes so that your site adjustments are reflected in search results quickly and accurately.
• Instead of deleting content entirely, consider keeping pages with valuable information to retain internal links and some SEO value, helping your site maintain its structure and ranking potential.

Final Thoughts

You might be amazed to see how simple it is to unpublish your WordPress website using Cloudways. There is an easy approach that works for you, whether you want to take your website offline permanently, hide it for a while while you make changes, or simply unpublish a few specific pages or articles.

Additionally, Cloudways provides managed WordPress hosting with all the tools and assistance you need to keep everything functioning properly if you want a hassle-free and effortless hosting experience. Do you have any questions or advice to share? Please share your thoughts in the space provided for comments below!